When most people think of alcoholic beverages in Italy, they instantly think of wine.  Italy is a country famous all over the world for its superior wine-making ability.  This is why when I saw an advertisement for a beer festival in the local paper I thought there was a misprint.  Beer in Italy? Who would have considered the thought?

It turned out I wasn’t seeing things. The ad became clear as day; there was to be a seven day beer festival in Fermignano, a small town ten minutes away from Urbino.  I instantly knew where I would be spending the next seven nights. 

A few nights before the beer fest was to begin, our Urbino Project group was invited to a wine-tasting sponsored and paid for by a master sommelier.  Don’t get me wrong, it was amazing, but wine is really not my thing.  I haven’t developed a complex enough palette to really enjoy wine to its fullest.  Beer is a completely different story.  I just get beer. And I love it.  So we got a group of people together and headed to Fermignano for the festival.

My jaw dropped when we got there (my jaw has been dropping a lot on this trip.  See my blog about the discotheque).  I expected a little beer garden with a handful of people standing around talking politics.  WRONG.  The entrance into the festival was a maze of kegs leading into the fairground, hundreds of kegs.  The path opened up into a huge open field filled with hundreds of beer drinkers.  A giant stage was set up with a live band.  They were called Antani Project.  They were amazing.  A cover band with a ska/punk twist played songs I grew up on. Check them out here.  I wonder if I can get them to come to America to play at my birthday party. 

So I’m standing there with hundreds of fellow beer drinkers, listening to a live band play my favorite songs of all time.  Am I drinking? Is this what heaven looks like? Dear god I hope so.  Then I realized I had a major problem.  I was standing there empty handed.  It’s beer time.  

I went over to the booth where you buy your tickets for beer. Naturally, I bought a ticket for the biggest beer they had.  I walked over to the beer garden and waited in line. Then I saw her, one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen. She was behind the beer counter serving beers, and there was no line at her station. Hmm, I could wait in this line and have some random, old, drunk guy pour me a beer, or I could bypass the que and try to strike up a conversation with a beautiful girl.  Tough choice. 

As I approached her station our eyes met.  She flashed me a smile, and I shot one right back. I got up to the counter, we continued to smile. A connection perhaps? I pulled the beer ticket out of my pocket and handed it to her.  She took it, looked at it, and looked back at me.  The smile on her face turned into a confused, no, disgusted look.  She walked to the back of the tent and came back with what I thought was a mop bucket.  Wrong again.  It was my beer glass.  Oh I’m sorry, did I say glass? I meant four-pound, mediaeval goblet of the most powerful king in Europe. This thing was huge.  In the hands of the right person, this thing easily could be used as a killing devise. I digress. 

So the girl fills my bucket and hands it over.  I could tell by the look on her face that she was thinking only one thing, “stupid, drunk American.”  Whatever lady, this is a freaking beer festival.  I didn’t come here to be dainty and practice my manners.

The rest of the night was amazing.  I cant wait to go the international beer festival in Berlin in two weeks. That’s going to be insane.  Im not going to go into details about the rest of the evening, but I learned one valuable life lesson.

When the beer glass is as big as your head, only drink one.